


book of revelation

by icygrace



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Post 2x21
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 10:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3934147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icygrace/pseuds/icygrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There is a book of Revelation in everyone’s life, as there is in the Bible. [Bash reads his] that bitter night, as [they keep their] agonized vigil.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	book of revelation

**Author's Note:**

> Future fic written post 2x21, pre-finale, will probably wind up AU. Summary taken from and title inspired by a scene in Anne of the Island by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

“It’s not right, for her to try to keep him away now,” Francis rages as they exit the sickroom. He is in a towering temper, angrier than Lola has ever seen him.

 

“Francis, you know how things are between them –”

 

“I don’t care; that’s not important, not now. I would despise you if you kept me from our son’s side at a moment like this.”

 

Lola crosses herself. “God forbid. I would never.”

 

“And I won’t have it.”

 

“I disagree with what she’s doing, but it’s not our place –”

 

“The child who lies dying is my brother’s child; that makes it my place. And even if it didn’t, I am king and I am _making it_ my place.”

 

\---

 

“The king bids you return at once, my lord,” the messenger says, holding out a small envelope bearing Francis’s seal.

 

“Return?” Bash echoes, slicing the letter open impatiently.

 

_Come quickly._

“He can’t mean for me to return _now_. Perhaps when the battle is won.”

_Jamie has burned with fever for days now – an ear infection._

 

“He said it was most urgent and you mustn’t stop until you reach the castle.”          

 

_But today things have taken a turn for the worse. The physician fears he will not see morning._

“No. No.” He blinks, but the words don’t change.

 

_I am so sorry, brother._

 

“My lord?”

 

"The fastest horse in the company. Have it saddled right now. I leave at once."

 

\---

 

He’s never known with certainty whether Jamie is his blood or Renaude’s, but in the end, it’s made no difference. Jamie is his son.

 

He loves Jamie. He would lay down his life for Jamie. Their relationship is as simple as that.

 

\---

 

His relationship with his wife is far more complicated – his skeptical wife, who’s never forgiven him for his behavior when bewitched by Delphine.

 

Or perhaps she resents him for letting Delphine into his life at all after putting a premature end to their marriage.

 

Or perhaps she’s angry that he put a premature end to their marriage in the first place – setting off the chain of events that put Renaude and Delphine between them and resulted in their child presenting a question she will never be able to answer with certainty. 

 

He thinks on it all, all of his mistakes, all of her mistakes, but mostly he doesn’t think, cold fear in his heart battling with the hot fury in his veins.

 

\---

 

He practically jumps off his horse and shoves the reins at the nearest guard at the gates, not caring that the man is a soldier and not a groomsman.

 

There are some times when it is good to be the king’s deputy. This time, he needs someone to obey his wordless order to complete a menial task without question because he is occupied with the urgent matter of getting to his dying child.

 

\---

 

He stops the first servant he sees as he crosses the threshold of the castle by catching her arm. She isn’t running, but she isn’t walking at the sleepy, leisurely pace he would expect of those up at this hour of the night. “Where is he?” he blurts out as soon as the girl turns surprised eyes on him.

 

“My lord –”

 

Only a split second later, he realizes the servant must have no idea who he’s talking about; she will probably think he means Fr –

 

“I was just taking these linens to Lady Kenna, if you’ll follow me –” She speeds up her already brisk pace.

 

\---

 

He expects to be taken to the nursery, as an ear infection isn’t communicable, but instead follows the girl – Annette – into his old rooms.

 

Pale as milk except for the twin spots of crimson on his cheeks, Jamie looks impossibly small lying in the bed his parents once shared.

 

“Wife,” Bash says in greeting, voice steely. He means to contain himself, but at the terrible sight of Jamie – his bright, laughing boy, always bursting with energy and curiosity, who runs to him whenever he returns to the castle, whether he’s been away a few hours or a few weeks – looking as though the very life has been bled from him, he cannot. “Were you waiting to send me an invitation to my son’s _funeral_?” He slams Francis’s note down on the table besides Kenna, where she keeps vigil at Jamie’s bedside.

 

“Please don’t shout. He needs his rest,” she replies tiredly.

 

If he weren’t so damned terrified, he might have taken note of her pallor, the dull eyes ringed with dark circles, the rumpled clothes lightly spotted with blood, the total disarray of her hair. He might have seen the way her lips trembled and her hands shook. He might have had some sympathy for the hell she’s obviously been living.  

 

“I didn’t think it would matter enough to bring you –”

 

“Wouldn’t matter enough?” he sputters furiously.

 

“That you wouldn’t want to be bothered, I suppose.”

 

“My son has been ill for days and may not last the night and you thought I wouldn’t want to be _bothered_?”

 

“You have more important things to do than sit with a sick child and clutch his hand and try to cool him down, all the while praying the bleeding stops but those ragged little breaths don’t.” Her words are half a sob, but then she sniffles, composing herself. “And it’s not as if you could heal him.”

 

“But I could have been here –”

 

“I didn’t know if you would come. I couldn’t bear to send for you and have you not come. I didn’t want to make him promises I couldn’t keep.”

 

“He asked for me?” The hot fury in his veins that propelled him all the way to the castle rises anew.

 

“When he was half-lucid, but I told him you were too far away, though you loved him dearly and that he must be your strong boy and bear his illness as bravely as you would. I hated to lie to him.”

 

“Then why did you not send for me?”

 

“I meant about your love! You are not so unfeeling that you would be unmoved by his death, but I imagine there will be some relief at no longer having to pretend love for a child whose parentage –”

 

“ _Pretend_? I would die for him!”

 

“But you wouldn’t _live_ for him!”

 

“Damn it, Kenna! Don’t speak in riddles, not now!” It’s the sort of argument they’ve never had before – usually he leaves before things can go this far, but now there is nowhere else in the world for him to be but here, nowhere he can run –

 

“Stop it, both of you, at once!”

 

Stunned into silence, they both turn to Lola, who stands in the doorway, limned in faint light from the corridor candles.

 

“Your child is struggling to survive this illness and all you can do is argue,” she hisses quietly. “How is he supposed to recover this way? You should both be ashamed.”

 

Neither of them can look at Lola or at Jamie after Lola’s admonishment. He is as ashamed as Lola says they ought to be and despite the half-sob Kenna contained earlier, Lola’s reproach seems to jar something within her. Whatever thin thread of self-restraint had helped Kenna keep calm and carry on snaps, her tears coming thick and fast and accompanied by huge, heaving sobs that shake her slender frame as she curls in on herself.

 

Lola slides in beside her friend on the small bench and pulls Kenna’s head down against her shoulder, strokes her hair and makes comforting noises. “Oh, Kenna.”

 

After a long while, Kenna’s tears are spent and sleep claims her.

 

“I know she hasn’t made the best decisions, Bash,” Lola says quietly, holding her slumbering friend close. She sounds as if she’s apologizing on Kenna’s behalf. “But she’s been distraught, half-mad with fear. And she’s tried so hard to be strong. She hasn’t really slept since Jamie became ill. She hadn’t wept until now. But I don’t think I can overstate how terrifying it is to see your child this way. And she was just trying to do what she thought was best for him. I disagreed that it was best, but I know she sincerely believed it was.”

 

\---

 

_Your heart . . . broken, and then healed . . . but it will shatter because . . ._

_Go on._

_You will lose someone very close to you. And soon._

_Who? Tell me who!_

_I don't know._  

 

He doesn’t know why he remembers Delphine’s long-ago words. The night she predicted future heartbreak, he was shaken to see Kenna with Antoine, thinking she referred to his wife.

 

But when Francis became ill after Delphine saved his life, he thought Francis’s life was the price for his own and his loss would be Francis, to death. But Francis was saved when he murdered Clarissa.

 

Later, when he learned that his mother had died, he thought it might be the loss of her that Delphine referred to – but that loss did not shatter him. Diane de Poitiers was his mother, but after learning what manner of woman she truly was and remembering what he’d tried to block out – that she’d made Count Vincent’s siege possible – he had never been able to look at her the same way again.

 

Then, after he’d been freed of Delphine, he thought once again that the loss she spoke of might not be by death. Perhaps it did refer to Kenna and to the breakdown of their marriage.

 

But perhaps Delphine was wrong when she said his loss would occur _soon_.

 

\---

 

Though children die young and often, he has never considered the possibility of losing Jamie. The thought had never crossed his mind.

 

He’s always anticipated Jamie growing to manhood, teaching Jamie both the better things he’d learned from Henry – how to ride and spar like he was born in the saddle with a blade in his hand – and the many things Henry had failed to teach him. He meant to be better.

 

But it’s only now that he realizes that he hasn’t been. He’s allowed the failure of his marriage, his failures as a husband – the ones he uses every battle and deputy’s duty to run from – to make a poor father of him as well. Nearly nothing that Kenna once complained of – the time spent away, the secrets, the lies, the reckless endangerment of his own life for strangers’ sakes – has changed; it’s only his ambition that’s grown now that there is a child to inherit anything he earns himself.

 

It’s a poor way to show his love, but it’s been his way nevertheless; so how can Kenna believe he does not love his son? Isn’t it obvious?

 

He knows when Jamie looks at him, he sees someone heroic and brave. But does he see a father who loves him? Or does Jamie think like Kenna does? _Will he die thinking the same?_ a dark voice within him wonders.

 

\---

 

It’s true that he hadn’t wanted children. He’d believed he had more than enough reason to want to avoid that particular part of married life.

 

Long before marriage, the fact that he’d had nothing to offer any children of his had been more than enough to make him wary. But later – he’d seen Isobel die bringing her baby into the world, he knew such deaths were unfortunately all too common, and the cold fear that had crept into his heart at the thought of Kenna in Isobel’s place was more than enough to freeze any interest in children with her eyes and her smile.

 

Kenna’s own mother had died in childbirth, a fact Kenna hadn’t volunteered to him. He knew her mother had died, but not how, and the moment after she answered his direct question, he knew why she hadn’t offered up the information herself. _My mother was older, though, when she had Callum. When she was younger, with Andrew and me, it was all perfectly fine._

 

Kenna had wanted children and she had recognized his reluctance. But he’d rather have had her than children.

 

Then, there had been the many responsibilities to Francis and the realm that had him saddling his horse and riding away from the castle and his wife more often than not. Those responsibilities were a good excuse to spend some much-needed time alone away from court. It was a rush to play the hero, to be greeted with gratitude and respect in the towns and villages he aided and with his brother’s thanks when he returned to court. He could believe himself worthy of his brother’s esteem, of the title and lands Francis bestowed on him, the title and lands Henry had failed to give him.

 

He truly loved his wife, but he rarely gave her the time and attention she wanted and deserved. In time, she stopped looking at him like he was the _true and gentle knight_ she once feared he could never be for her. He wondered what it would be like if they had children and knew she would resent him all the more for the time he spent away.

 

Of course, now he does not have her – has her in name only – and has a child who slips further away from them by the hour. Unless something changes very soon, soon Bash will have nothing and he does not how he will bear the pain.

 

_If he lives, I will be better. I will spend the rest of his life proving that I am worthy of having him in mine._

 

\---

 

_I’m pregnant._

_With a traitor’s child?_

_Perhaps! I don’t_ know _! It could be yours. But either way, General Renaude is dead and I am so very afraid . . ._

 

He shakes his head, even now hating the way he responded. Despite his initial shock over Delphine’s “vision” of their children, he’d wanted to be with Delphine – wanted a life with her, children with her – thanks to the magical hold whose precise nature he still does not understand to this day. So he did not follow through with the agreement he and Kenna had previously made; he asked Francis for help getting an annulment without waiting for her to find another man who could make her feel safe, fearing that it would be near-impossible now that she carried a child he was near-certain was Renaude’s. 

 

Thanks to that, Kenna’s reputation, her faith in him ( _You are kind. And strong. And the only man who's ever put my needs above his own._ ) – whatever had remained, he killed it. He stopped it all after Delphine’s hold over him broke with her death – it had been like waking from a nightmare – but the damage was done.

 

Still, he promised he would call the child his no matter what, knowing that he couldn’t walk away from a child that _might_ be his flesh and blood and knowing also that even if the baby clearly _wasn’t_ his, it did not deserve to pay for their mistakes. He knew what it was to be a bastard and a traitor’s bastard would fare far worse than a king’s.

 

Before making that promise, he asked himself how he would respond to a child with Renaude’s look, if he would treat that child differently than he would a child with his own, and hated that he could not answer the question with any certainty. When Jamie emerged from the womb bearing no striking resemblance to anyone save his mother, he was so disappointed yet relieved that he was half-ashamed of himself.

 

According to Lola, Jamie looked even more so like Kenna’s younger brother, the boy the late Lady Tarras had died to bring into the world. _Callum was already such a handsome boy the last time I saw him; he will break hearts someday and so will this one_ , she cooed over Jamie. _They are heartbreakers, the Livingstons. Greer fell half in love with Andrew_ – the eldest and heir – _when we were little girls visiting Livingston House_ –

 

Marie de Guise had selected Mary’s future ladies-in-waiting and had wanted them all to meet to see if they would get on with one another as they had with Mary before agreeing that they would be sent to France with her daughter the first time Mary came to French court, before she was sent to the convent for her safety. As the Earl of Tarras was a distant cousin of her late husband King James and had proven his loyalty in the past, Marie had trusted Lord and Lady Tarras best to host her and the little Queen of Scots away from the prying eyes of courtiers whose loyalties were questionable at best.

 

 _And his lordling friends and the servant boys alike were all mad for Kenna when we were grown_ –

 

\---

 

Kenna, still lying against Lola and lost to a fitful slumber, eventually wakes with a start. “Jamie – is –”

 

“His condition is unchanged,” he replies to the question before she can ask it, hoping he’s succeeding in hiding from his voice the misery in his heart.

 

Tears fill her eyes again, but she does not weep. “I hoped –”

 

“I know,” he says quietly. “I too hoped there would be better news when you woke.”

 

“Let me – more compresses –”

 

Kenna makes to stand, but Lola tugs her back down. “Bash has called for them – and they’ve been applied as often as possible – and the physician again; he will be arriving shortly.”

 

\---

 

The physician has somewhat encouraging news. “The bleeding appears to have stopped, so perhaps the disease is burning itself out. But the fever has yet to break. If it does not do so soon –”

 

Kenna looks away.

 

“It will,” Bash responds, surprising himself with the ferocity and certainty in his voice. But it dies as quickly as it came. “It must,” he says less surely.

 

\---

 

His brother comes in just before dawn.

 

Kenna rises at once. “Your Majesty –”

 

Francis nods. “Lady Kenna.”

 

Despite the state of their marriage, his wife has always been at ease with his brother and he wonders at the sudden formality.

 

“Brother,” he says more warmly, coming close and touching his shoulder before Bash has a chance to rise as well. “I know you are not supposed to crowd the sickroom, but I could not sleep for worrying –”

 

“Now you know how the rest of us felt.”

 

Francis, too, once bled from the ear and burned with fever and looked as pale as though death had already come and taken him.

 

But this time, there is no one whose life can be sacrificed to save the person Bash loves.

 

Francis turns to Kenna again. “How is he?”

 

“The bleeding has stopped, but the fever has not broken.”

 

Francis approaches the bed. To his surprise, Francis sits beside Jamie and leans down to kiss his forehead. He sits up straighter at once and then places the back of his hand against Jamie’s forehead. “I – the last time I was here –”

 

Kenna won’t meet Francis’s eyes.

 

“I don’t want to give you false hope, but – I really think he doesn’t feel quite as warm.”

 

Then Kenna looks at Francis, eyes full of that hope that Francis said he didn’t want to raise without reason, and scrambles to repeat the gesture that had Francis questioning their report on Jamie’s unchanging fever. “He – he – he’s warm still, but he’s not burning up. He’s –”

 

The fever’s broken – it’s _broken_.

 

And Bash feels as though he might be whole again someday.


End file.
